Star-Ledger file photoMerck's Vytorin is one of the medicines at the heart of a lawsuit challenging co-payment subsidies offered by Merck and other drugmakers..

Eight drugmakers, including Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck, are being sued by the health funds of four labor unions that allege the companies are illegally subsidizing co-payments as a way of keeping consumers on brand medicines instead of less expensive generics.

In seven lawsuits filed yesterday in U.S. District Courts, the labor unions allege the pharmaceutical companies are committing a form of “commercial bribery’’ by offering consumers discount coupons and discount cards, but effectively driving up the costs insurers pay for prescription medicines.

Pharmaceutical companies are “duping consumers with misleading coupons that are more about increasing corporate profits than actually reducing the cost of drugs for consumers,’’ said Wells Wilkinson, director of Community Catalyst’s Prescription Access Litigation. Three of the labor unions are members of Community Catalyst’s PAL coalition.

“The use of these deceptive coupons will increase costs for consumers’ health plans by billions of dollars, contributing to higher premiums and the increasing loss of coverage and benefits for Americans,’’ Wilkinson said.

In one of the lawsuits, filed in Newark, Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 572 alleges that Merck has offered co-pay discounts on a number of drugs, including the top-selling diabetes drug Januvia, Vytorin for high cholesterol and the allergy medicine Nasonex.

A Merck spokesman declined to comment yesterday because the company had not seen the lawsuit.

“Presenting a co-pay subsidy card to a pharmacist triggers a secondary form of insurance — provided by the manufacturer — that functionally reduces the price of the drug without disclosing that reduction to the insurer,’’ the Tennessee-based plumbers and pipefitters union said in its suit.

The lawsuit describes the co-payment discounts as both an “illegal kickback’’ and “a form of insurance fraud.’’

In the other six lawsuits, which were filed in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, similar allegations are made against Abbott, Amgen, Bristol-Myers, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Pfizer.

In an e-mail statement, Pfizer described the co-pay coupons and cards as a way of supporting an individual’s choices.

“Given the larger cost-sharing burden being placed on patients, Pfizer supports the use of company-sponsored programs which help patients with out-of-pocket expenses,’’ the company said in its statement.

The discount coupons and cards are often advertised on television and offered to consumers at the pharmacy. Others are available over the internet.
When Pfizer’s cholesterol drug Lipitor went off patent late last year, the company offered patients $4 coupons in an effort to keep them on its brand and prevent the new, lower-priced generic drug from eroding its sales

“The industry has grabbed onto this as a marketing tactic,’’ ’’ Wilkinson said.